Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 15:53:39 ET

Where's That Landmark?

I originally was going to go on a cross country flight on Sunday... but decided against it in favour of some practice instead.

I headed out the Claremont training area to practice some forced approaches. This area is better than the north (cooks bay/Keswick) because it has more fields to choose from (and it's not close to Greenbank airport).

Everything was going dandy until I decided to head back to the airport. There are a set of train tracks that run right through Claremont and go through Markham. I normally follow the tracks back to Markham, pick up the Markham water tower , then head back to the airport.

Follow along on the map.

As I was following the tracks back I saw a town that I thought was Markham (Marker 1) and decided to turn towards it. After a while I consulted the map and discovered it was Stouffville so altered my course back towards Markham. I intercepted the tracks and started following them south west again.

I still couldn't find the water tower so I decided to start circling (Marker 2) to see if I can find it. By this point I was at 2000' to ensure that I was under Pearsons class C. The last thing I wanted to do was bust through into controlled airspace.

It only took me one revolution before I heard on the radio a plane call up Buttonville tower saying that they were over the Markham water tower. I spotted them about a mile and a half to my right and decided to follow them in (Marker 3). About 10 seconds later, I saw the water tower.

My problem wasn't that I was lost... Technically I knew where I was. The problem was that I couldn't' find where one of the reporting points was in order to let Buttonville know where I was. If worst comes to worst I could have asked for a VDF steer.

How would you have handled this situation? Leave a comment.

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Training

I'd call the tower and ask for a "simulated" DF steer.

Posted by: Rob on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 18:06:56

Tune in the nearest nav aid and use that to determine your position. Or if all else fails, own up and confess to ATC.
-dr

Posted by: Douglas on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 18:53:54

yeah.. a df steer is a possibility..

I knew where the airport was and I knew where I was I just didn't know where my reporting point was.

I guess I could have just said "7 miles west of the airport"? But then I'm sure tower would just say "report over someplace" and I woudln't know how to get there.

Posted by: Blake on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 00:19:34